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The international community should stand back and reflect on the lessons learned from the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) experience in implementing safeguards over the last decade, particularly in North Korea and Iran. Such review and reflection suggests that just when safeguards are getting better, the political will to use them effectively seems to be waning.
U.S.-Russian relations are "rather precarious" and could spiral downwards. The Russians are struck by what looks to be a sort of breathtaking exercise of double standards on the part of the Bush administration.
Russia's two decades of geopolitical decline started with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and included the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it is possible that 2005 may be viewed retrospectively as a historical turning point -- the end of Russia's decline. This recovery might be based on the shaky foundation of high oil prices, but it's real nonetheless.
While American companies would still like to see an improvement in Ukraine's energy sector, they admit that the climate has improved in recent years. Ukraine would like to see an even larger American interest in Ukrainian energy.
The present era may be shaping up as yet another round in the conflict between liberalism and autocracy. The main protagonists on the side of autocracy will not be the petty dictatorships of the Middle East theoretically targeted by the Bush doctrine. They will be the two great autocratic powers, China and Russia, which pose an old challenge not envisioned within the new "war on terror" paradigm.
What the 1996 Moscow nuclear summit did was begin to meld a highly effective focus on proliferation threats within the G8. By 2002, this produced a brand new Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, launched at the Kananaskis G8 meeting in Canada.
Martha Brill Olcott discusses U.S.-Azeri relations with NPR's Michelle Kelemen.
The security situation in Azerbaijan is strained because of the country’s antagonistic neighbors: Turkmenistan, Iran, and Armenia. Russian policy in the South Caucasus also threatens regional stability. Azerbaijan's long border with Iran could cause problems should the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program escalate.
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